Electroconvulsive Therapy in Refractory Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Case Report

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a treatment of undisputed efficacy for severe and treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders. Notwithstanding extensive data on efficacy and safety, it is significantly underused, corresponding to one of the most stigmatized approaches in psychiatry. The list of problems for which ECT is potentially effective does not include obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), resulting in only a few available case reports in the literature in which OCD is the target of this specific therapeutic strategy. The authors describe a patient with refractory OCD for whom ECT was prescribed, with remarkable clinical response and functional improvement. The existence of a clear response to ECT in reported cases of OCD, albeit in a globally small number of patients, should make it essential to identify predictors of ECT response that could assist clinicians in assessing and guiding such cases, particularly those labeled as refractory to treatment.